2008: The Year in Review

It was a good year at the movies, wasn’t it?

Superheroes showed us that they can both blow up stuff and blow our minds (thank you, Iron Man and Batman). Sexy ladies proved that they are, indeed, a force to be reckoned with at the box office, and a little robot made us fall in love with him with nary a word spoken.

Here’s a look at what I liked most about the year that was. I hope 2008 was everything you wanted it to be and more.

Have a good 2009!

Best Body: Jason Statham (The Bank Job, but really this is because of Transporter 3, which I didn’t see, but c’mon….)

Best Cameo: Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder

Best Chemistry: The cast of Tropic Thunder

Best Comeback: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder)

Best Dressed: (tie) Amy Adams in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and the cast of Sex and the City

Best Ensemble: Sex and the City

Best Hair: (tie) Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Keira Knightley in The Duchess

Best Look: Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in Australia

Best Prop: “Roger,” the vintage studded belt Sarah Jessica Parker wore in several scenes of Sex and the City

Best Quotable: “Skadoush!” (Kung Fu Panda)

Best Trailer: Revolutionary Road

Hey, Madonna – Nice Try (I Mean It!): Filth and Wisdom

Hey, Madonna – I Don’t Have the Sundance Channel (When’s the DVD Coming Out?): I Am Because We Are

Biggest Scene-stealer: (tie) Danny McBride (Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express) and Jason Bateman (Hancock)

Can't Get Enough – Female: Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)

Can't Get Enough – Male: (tie) James Marsden (27 Dresses) and John Krasinski (Leatherheads)

Can’t Wait to See You Again on the Big Screen – Female: Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

Can’t Wait to See You Again on the Big Screen – Male: Thomas Kretschmann (Wanted, Valkyrie)

Could Have Gotten More: Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace, but really this is because of Flashbacks of a Fool, which I just rented on DVD, and Defiance, which hasn’t opened in my market yet)

Coolest Title (Even Though I Didn’t See It): Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla

Dreamiest Casting: Keri Russell in Bedtime Stories

Guiltiest Pleasure: Cloverfield

Most Beautiful: The cast of Sex and the City

Most Disappointing: Speed Racer

Most Handsome: Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace

Most I Love You But Please Don’t Sing: Mamma Mia!’s Pierce Brosnan

Most Improved: The Hulk franchise (The Incredible Hulk)

Most Promising: (tie) Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man) and Dustin Lance Black (screenwriter of Milk, pictured at right)

Most Underrated: Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town

Most Romantic: WALL-E’s WALL-E and EVE

Most Welcome to the A-List: (tie) Anna Faris (The House Bunny) and Michael Cera (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist)

Most Enjoyable: Get Smart

Least Enjoyable: Over Her Dead Body

Breakthrough Performance – Female: Elizabeth Banks (W., Zack and Miri Make a Porno)

Breakthrough Performance – Male: David Kross (The Reader)

Best Supporting Actresses: Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Rosemary DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Best Supporting Actors: Josh Brolin (Milk), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), James Franco (Milk), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

Best Actresses: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City), Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long), Meryl Streep (Doubt)

Best Actors: Christian Bale (The Dark Knight), Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Sean Penn (Milk), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Directors: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), Gus Van Sant (Milk), Andrew Stanton (WALL-E)

Best Animated Film: WALL-E

Best Documentary: American Teen

10 Best Films of the Year: (in alphabetical order)

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
The Reader
Sex and the City
Slumdog Millionaire
Tell No One
Tropic Thunder
WALL-E

Honorable Mention: Marley & Me

Photos: Lionsgate Films (Transporter 3); IFC Films (Filth and Wisdom); Paramount Vantage (Defiance); Focus Features (Milk); New Line Cinema (Sex and the City); 20th Century Fox (Australia).

The Biggest Sex of All

Last we saw the women of the hit HBO series Sex and the City – back on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004 (yeah, I remember) – they’d all gotten the love.

Carrie Bradshaw’s lifelong quest for “real, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each other love” had come to an end when, after six long years of on-off romance, Mr. Big finally told her she was the one.

Samantha Jones had beaten breast cancer and admitted that her boyfriend Smith Jerrod had meant more to her than any man she’d ever known.

Charlotte York-Goldenblatt’s life with husband Harry had gotten more blessed when their adoption of a Chinese baby girl went through, and Miranda Hobbes had settled nicely into her new life in Brooklyn with husband Steve and son Brady.

Four years later, Carrie & Co. are back, and I just couldn’t be more thrilled.

Sex and the City was a groundbreaking phenomenon in its premium-cable run, one that grew exponentially when it was adapted to air on basic cable.

Today marks another landmark in the Sex machine’s history: A much-anticipated film adaptation is opening – a remarkable feat considering that A) an earlier shot at transitioning to the silver screen soon after the series finale didn’t pan out, and B) Hollywood quite rarely banks on movies starring women over 40.

As Sex and the City opens at a theater near you, you must celebrate more than the return of four friends. You also must celebrate a Manolo Blahnik-high-heeled step in the right direction for an entire industry.

Cosmos for everyone!

But onto the business du jour.....

The movie acknowledges that time has passed and that these women are still living and thriving, as luminous as ever, older, and, yes, wiser.

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) still is with John James Preston (Chris Noth), a.k.a. Mr. Big. She no longer writes her newspaper column, but still writes for Vogue and has in fact published two more books and is working on a fourth.

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is in remission and now lives on the West Coast where she runs a talent management agency – her biggest client is Smith (Jason Lewis), with whom she lives in L.A. She’s even more successful than before, yet she feels disconnected from herself.

Meanwhile, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is beyond happy – happy to the point where she feels guilty about it – and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is grappling with an unfathomable betrayal.

Clocking at almost 2 ½ hours, Sex and the City is an ambitious movie.

I’m tickled to say veteran series writer-director Michael Patrick King really packed into it everything you ever could want it to have and more (even Carrie’s tutu makes a cameo) – fun, laughs, tears; joy, sadness, anger; shoes, bags, belts....

Oh yeah, you can’t talk Sex and the City without talking about the fashion. Costume designer Patricia Field has outdone herself, but the biggest, best trend the movie will spawn is love.

By the way – there’s a fundamental reason why Carrie always looks her best: she knows she can’t risk looking like a hamper had just thrown up on her should she run into an ex, which is what happened to me on my way to the movie. Really.

But I digress. And I haven’t even mentioned Jennifer Hudson’s pivotal turn as Louise, Carrie’s assistant. Ha – I guess I just did.

As the trailer, and countless Internet reports already revealed, including mine, Carrie and Mr. Big get engaged in the movie. She poses for Vogue as a beaming bride, which leads to a gorgeous and dramatic and voluminous Vivienne Westwood dress…and to the wedding getting bigger than Big.

Will our protagonist get her happy ending? That is the movie’s biggest crux, and, naturally, you’re going to have to watch it for the answer. Fans of the series definitely will not be disappointed, and they will feel like Carrie & Co. have come full circle. For that, this is the most satisfying Sex of all.

My Rating ****

Photo: New Line Cinema.

The Biggest Sex of All…Again

I am a fan of Sex and the City. I was a fan of SATC during its six years on HBO, and, quite possibly, one of the few who hearted the first movie. But now, I am a disappointed fan.

As Sex and the City 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2008 smash hit, opens in theaters around the world, I cannot help but wonder (holy Manolo Blahnik!): Was it needed?

Not that I don’t welcome the sequel. I enjoy the company of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda. Those four ladies are my girls, as they are yours, and that of countless women, gay men, and closeted straight men.

The problem with SATC 2 is it’s more of the same, and not in a good way.

Sarah Jessica Parker promised us during production that this would be a romp, which, in some ways, it is thanks to a plotline that takes Carrie & Co. on a beyond-lavish trip to Abu Dhabi. However, and for lack of a better way to put it, the shtick is getting old – the fantasy is losing its gloss and shine, and not even the sight of crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutins could restore it. The girls still have It, but where the story is going is, sadly, anything but.

Just as troubling, writer-director Michael Patrick King surpasses the first movie’s 2 1/2-hours running time for some crazy reason. I recognized SATC 1’s ambition, and while SATC 2 has it, too (I mean, that’s some social commentary right there to have four liberated gals doing their thing in a place where girl power is frowned upon), it also has one heckuva lot of a sloppy streak...and a lot of time to show it off.

The puns feel forced, the script mirrors its predecessor’s in key instances, and worst, by giving us yet another happily ever after it negates the hard-fought, satisfying one we got a couple of years ago.

Sex and the City 2 opens with a truly over-the-top wedding, one to rival the one Carrie (Parker) and John James Preston, a.k.a. Mr. Big (Chris Noth) almost had. It’s a gay wedding – but not just a gay wedding but that of last gays standing Stanford (Willie Garson, in “like-a-virgin” white) and Anthony (Mario Cantone). This gwedding has swans, Carrie in a tux and fashionable hat as the best man, a token straight stud for Samantha (Kim Cattrall) to bed, lots of bubbly, and Liza. Of course La Minnelli would be there to marry the happy couple and perform Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” (Put a Ring on It)” – the homosexual pull is strong.

Updates on the women’s stylish lives are peppered in the scene, which includes their husbands, children, and pets – it’s nice to see them all in one place – and they continue the morning after over breakfast and in subsequent scenes that could’ve used a more decisive hand in the editing room.

Carrie is about to publish another book, about her first year of marriage to Big, and contemplates what happens after you say “I do” and you fall into a routine that lacks “sparkle.”

Samantha is fighting off menopause tooth and nail, taking lots and lots of pills that should help her slow down the passing of time (cue in the “swallow” joke from the trailer), while Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is struggling to be the mommy she wants to be and to trust that her hot nanny won’t be a tempt her husband away.

For her part, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is as overworked as usual, but finally in a place in her life where she wants to put her family first.

It’s good to see where our four fab friends are in life, that their economic woes, while markedly different than are ours, are woes nonetheless (Carrie can’t sell her old place...boo-friggin’-hoo). When it’s finally time to head to the Middle East, SATC 2 perks up, but so much happens over the first couple of days it’s hard to process the feelings we’re supposed to be processing.

Not helping matters is Aidan Shaw (John Corbett), looking better than ever, who Carrie sees while shopping at a souk. I won’t spoil anything at all by saying he serves as a reminder for our heroine of things past, present, and future.

I can see how bringing back Aidan was a means to an end, but I feel like King used the man and his memory for an uncool goal.

I’m on Team Aidan – don’t ever do that to him again!

As you probably know from the previews, “something happen[s]” in Abu Dhabi. Will Carrie and Big survive it?

And how does randy-panties Samantha fare on vacation in a conservative land? Will Charlotte (underused throughout and again forced to bare the brunt of a joke after falling off a camel) regain her motherly mojo? And will Miranda ever cease to be such an unfailing friend?

Never. This ladies are soul mates, and four better or for worse they are ours, too. I just wish Sex and the City 2 hadn’t made me not wanna hang with ’em for a bit.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: New Line Cinema.

Life Without Sex?

Kristin Davis isn’t so sure there will be a third Sex and the City movie – and that, right now, I think could be a good thing since the first movie rocked...but this summer’s sequel didn’t at all.

“I don’t think [there will be a Sex and the City 3], not that I know of,” she said. “I wish it was so that we were continuing, but I don’t know.”

The actress hasn’t heard anything official, and is quick to point out poor box office performance or backlash aren’t impediments for the audience to get a Sex-y trilogy.

“We made $300 million internationally,” she said about Sex and the City 2, adding that the poorly received sequel might have been a product of too much buzz. “There was so much hype, not coming from us, but the media hyped it up and then they tore it down.”

I still say with good reason, but I would never discount the popularity of Carrie & Co., or the idea of seeing the ladies redeemed on the silver screen with a good (shorter) story.

Still, Davis maintains, “I could be wrong. Obviously, there was a time when we thought there was no movie happening so you never know. But it is not looking great.”

I say we give it time.... And then we let them bring the sex and the city back to Sex and the City.

Photo: Warner Bros.

2 Hearts

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, a real-life on-off-on-off? Hollywood couple, has It (in spades) in their first big-screen collaboration, Nanette Burstein’s Going the Distance. (I know the two were in He’s Just Not That Into You, but that one doesn’t count because they didn’t have any scenes together.)

Seriously, these two hot childs in New York City could not have more chemistry.

This is only heightened by the hipster-y, effortless way Burstein (who delivered the winning 2008 doc American Teen) shot them running wild and looking pretty – and in love and in heartache and in everything in between.

I tell ya, this one has it all: fun, laughs, a bit of poignancy....

That’s because, I should point out right outta the gate, this is not your typical romantic comedy. This isn’t boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl stumble over a misunderstanding but ultimately live happily ever after. This is a reflection of how things really are sometimes.

Barrymore and Long play Erin and Garrett, a pair of thirtysomethings who meet by chance at a downtown-New York bar one night, and become inseparable in that E+L 4ever kinda way.

Except 4ever is more like six weeks: Erin is in the Big Apple catching up on her life, working as an intern at the newspaper of her dreams, while Garrett – a working bee at a record company who wishes he could sign the bands that he likes...the indie ones who actually deserve a shot – is beyond-fresh out of a relationship, and maybe not all that into relationships, anyway.

It’s a bit of a thing at first, where each of them is at, but, ultimately, not that big of a deal.

A good thing since the two are, clearly, made for each other.

They both are so easy breezy, so tuned into the each other’s vibe, it’s almost sickening but, nevertheless, completely genuine. When their six weeks together are up, they face the issue in an honest way, without making silly-love-song promises to each other. It’s so matter-of-fact, so the way it would and should be...so...not the way they feel.

Erin and Garrett have been falling in love. They know it, and we know it. So they decide to go at it long distance, which is when Going the Distance gets really real.

The movie takes us through the ebbs and flows of their trying to making things work with her in San Francisco and him in the city. With a merciless job market that makes relocation pretty much impossible. With trust issues that arise out of not seeing each for months at the time.

It’s hard out there for two star-crossed lovers, y’ know. The situation is made bearable only by E and G’s tremendous support group, which include her sister, played by Christina Applegate with an impeccable sense of bitching comedic timing, and his bros before...anything, really (Jason Sudeikis from SNL and the scene-stealing Charlie Day from FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). If you already were looking at these two kids’ lives with a Oh-they-look-like-sooo-much-fun! eye, wait until you meet their friends.

To see this couple go the distance the way they do is a breath of fresh air that I know a lot of people will mistake by a whiff of bulls--- because they won’t be able to buy the trials and tribulations of an honest opposite-coasts courtship.

The audience will be looking for the sugarcoating, and the lack of it, the replacement of it by cursing, and the attempts at phone sex, and the acknowledgement of temptations, will prove jarring.

We get the good, the bad, and the jealous from this atypical rom-com, and that’s a good thing.

Therein lies the sweetness of this movie, and that’s why I think Going the Distance is so good.

My Rating ****

Photo: Warner Bros.

Carla Gugino Hearts Miami

When Carla Gugino was just getting started making movies, she had the opportunity to come to Miami and make one I adore: 1995’s Miami Rhapsody. Today, the actress is back in the Magic City to talk about the movie during a reunion retrospective hosted by the Miami International Film Festival.

And I am missing it.

:(

Ah, but I did not miss Gugino: We spoke on the phone earlier this week – :)! – about the comedy, which was the first effort as a director of one Mr. David Frankel, who went on to helm such crowd-pleasers as The Devil Wears Prada and Marley & Me.

The seminal project, decidedly indie with a budget of $6 million, wasn’t a big hit, but it has endured the test of time, IMHO, because of its charming insights into relationships, both familial and romantic, and because it featured a then-young cast of big-screen up-and-comers, like Gugino and Sarah Jessica Parker and Antonio Banderas and Jeremy Piven (and even Naomi Campbell), that worked together like gangbusters and captured a truly sizzling picture of Miami. If you miss the pre-behemoth days of the city, the movie is full of now-vintage shots of South Beach excitement and Coconut Grove fun.

To me, Miami Rhapsody paved the way for Sex and the City to happen. And just look at what that cast went on to do (did you catch Gugino going tête-à-tête with Sigourney Weaver on last summer’s Political Animals?).

Anyway, Miami Rhapsody centered on Parker’s Gwyn Marcus, a twentysomething Miamian rethinking everything she believes about functional relationships after she learns that her idolized parents don’t have the marriage she thought they that...and after she sees her sister (Gugino) rushing into a marriage that should have been better thought...and after she finds out that her brother (Kevin Pollak) is a scoundrel. Fearing that she, too, is genetically predisposed for romantic failure, Gwyn must reconsider everything in her life, including her engagement to her boyfriend (Ally McBeal’s Gil Bellows), in order to find a new balance in her life.

For Florida girl Gugino (she’s from Sarasota), the movie has a place all its own in her heart, too.

“Miami Rhapsody was definitely very significant, very fun,” she said. “It was such a special time period. David [Frankel] made it great for us on set. I remember Jeremy and I arrived together and the first thing David told us to do was go to the beach and get a tan. There was such a celebratory mood in the air. Shooting on South Beach was so much fun.”

Gugino also remembers the movie fondly because she got to play dress-up and play things real.

“I got to be married in the movie, which I don’t think has happened again in my career. But what I think made the movie so winning in my mind and that of people who come to me saying they love it, like you, is how it found humor in everyday things, like the mini-bar scene I had in the movie.”

Gugino, SJP, and Piven will attend a special screening of Miami Rhapsody at the Tower Theater tonight, the after-party of which will be held at the Coral Gables Country Club.

It is probably all sold-out by now, but click here and try your luck. You know you want to: This kind of event is the epitome of Miami, just as the movie says: Hot and stormy, and occasionally a little dangerous. Yeah, awful, but then – what’s with all the traffic at the open bar.

;)

Photo: Zimbio.com.

2010: The Year in Review

Cutting it close this year, aren’t I?

I usually earmark the last Friday of the year to share with y’all what it was that I liked, didn’t care for so much, and plain ol’ thought was kinda like, huh?

In 2010 I find myself in an interesting predicament. There are some movies I haven’t seen yet, so I can’t know whether I should include them in my traditional list, which starts out funny and irreverent and ends with my more serious top picks. So this year, I’m starting at the end, with my Top 10 films of the year only.

Stay tuned for the rest, my pretties.

10 Best Films of the Year (in alphabetical order):

127 Hours

Black Swan

Blue Valentine
The Ghost Writer
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3

Honorable Mention (tie): The Other Guys and The Town

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Best Directors: Darren Aronoksky (Black Swan), Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), David Fincher (The Social Network), Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), Christopher Nolan (Inception)

Best Body: David Lyons (Eat Pray Love)

Should’ve Done Better: Jennifer Aniston

Should’ve Gotten Better: Julia Roberts (Eat Pray Love)

Best Comeback: Gwyneth Paltrow (for her expanded role in Iron Man 2 and her expertly executed media blitz on behalf of Country Strong)

Best Dress: Tina Fey’s multi-purpose blue dress in Date Night

Best Supporting Actors: Vincent Cassel (Black Swan), Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Jeremy Renner (The Town), Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right), Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)

Best Use of Kim Cattrall: The Ghost Writer

Worst Use of Kim Cattrall (and Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon): Sex and the City 2

Can’t Wait to See More of – Female: Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right)

Can’t Wait to See More of – Male: Garrett Hedlund (Country Strong)

Most Welcome to the A-List: Emma Stone

Most Underappreciated: Knight & Day

Most Oh, No They Did Moment: When they brought back Aidan for that in Sex and the City 2

Best Supporting Actresses: Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech), Marion Cotillard (Inception), Barbara Hershey (Black Swan), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer)

Breakthrough Performance – Female: Mila Kunis (Black Swan)

Breakthrough Performance – Male: Jaden Smith (The Karate Kid)

Best Hair: Reese Witherspoon in How Do You Know

Best Look: Chris Pine in Unstoppable

Best Prop: Cam Gigandet’s box of Famous Amos Cookies in Burlesque

Best Trailer: Inception

Sexiest Mofo: Jake Gyllenhaall (buff in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, sensitive in Love & Other Drugs)

Best Actors: Jim Carrey (I Love You Phillip Morris), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), James Franco (127 Hours), Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)

Best Actresses: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Gwyneth Paltrow (Country Strong), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

Photo: DreamWorks Animation (How to Train Your Dragon); SuperHeroFan.net (Eat Pray Love); Sony Pictures (Easy A); The Weinstein Company (The King’s Speech).

Re-taking Hollywood

You did it, Hollywood! You have now given us two real-bad summer movies in a row. And given us yet another example of why you should leave well enough alone.

Con-f---in’-grats!

Four years after the finale of the comedy series upon which it is based aired on HBO, the long-awaited – yeah, if like, this were three years ago – Entourage movie is here, ready to not impress.

Harsh, I know, but it must be said that Entourage’s comeback ain’t all that good or fun. The movie’s not terrible like Aloha was terrible (btw, thanks, I guess, Cameron Crowe, for apologizing for casting Emma Stone as an Asian-American – now WTF is the sorry for delivering such a hot mess?). I mean, at least this offering makes, y’ know, sense. However, unlike, say the first Sex and the City movie (a proposition similarly fueled by insta-nostalgia), this TV-to-big screen endeavor fails to live up to expectations. It just doesn’t cut it – ’cause it didn’t bring it, plot-wise.

The story’s more of the same from the Queens boy-turned-It Boy who made it huge and his scrappy crew of best buds 4ever: Vincent Vince Vinnie Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his entourage are still on top of the Tinseltown heap, except his rarefied-air world, as magnified on the silver screen, looks pretty tinsel-less. The movie wastes no time essentially picking up just after the show left off: Vince is getting his quickie marriage to an unseen gal – some Vanity Fair reporter, per a quick Google update – annulled. E (Kevin Connolly) is still managing Vinnie and about to become a father (although he and Emmanuelle Chriqui’s Sloan aren’t together anymore). Turtle’s (Jerry Ferrara) swimming in dough after his tequila business took off like a rocket and still looking decidedly less doughy than when we first met him (and wooing Ronda Rousey, too). And Kevin Dillon’s hacktor Drama’s still, well...Drama (no breaks anywhere he turns).

Trust, the fantasy-life elements that made the show so entertaining for a good chunk of its Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated eight-season run – including the cool cars (like one the two Cadillac Ciel prototypes that exist on Earth); the unlimited access to fun (the movie opens on a yacht cruising the waters of Miami doubling as those of Ibiza) and hot chicks (just about every scene features some PYT entering or exiting the frame in an effortless shimmy); and the starry cameos galore – are there.

Now, though, in the Kardashian Age, in a time in which the #RichKids have made this commonplace, those things aren’t as, um, aspirational (?) anymore, and they definitely don’t transport us to Vinnie’s world the same way they once did. The fantasy comes from imagining a world in which a cameoing Jessica Alba has enough clout to threaten to walk away from a major blockbuster franchise lest her “passion project” gets a green light, right there on the very spot, in the middle of a studio lot, as she throws a mini-tantrum during one of several look-who-we-got-to-cameo montages in the movie. What was once fun to do – peak at a Hollywood up-and-comer’s life on a weekly basis – is a bore as a 104-minute production.

Which brings me to Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven).

Piven won a Golden Globe and three Emmys for his gonzo performance as the hellish, most effective talent agent in town, and it was awesome to watch tear into anything and anyone that got on the way of his glory. As one of the anchors of a movie, Ari can grate som’in’ fierce, no matter how much writer-director Doug Ellin, who also created and steered the show, tries to humanize him. Ari’s a studio head now, and the story hinges on the high stakes of his giving into Vince’s desire that he direct his next starring vehicle (a set-in-a-futuristic-L.A. take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde simply titled Hyde). Serious money people – Texans, no less – with real clout are at Ari’s neck (hey, Billy Bob Thornton and – what?! – Haley Joel Osment...?), and yet, he is the only one fretting about it.

Golden-boy Vince, we’ve come to find out, will shine in the end no matter what, and that makes Entourage an empty investment at the box office, no matter how many Emily Ratajkowskis they throw at us.

The Entourage movie looks pretty, but its charisma does not translate to the multiplex. You’ll be better off On Demanding it when the time comes.

My Rating **

Photo: Warner Bros.

Desert Master

It was a battle for the ages: Whose movie would I see over the Memorial Day weekend, the Sex-y ladies’ or SILF Jake Gyllenhaal’s?

Well, I saw Sex and the City 2 (again) on Friday – not ’cause I thought I’d like it more the second time around…I just needed to be mildly amused for three hours – and Gyllen-yum’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time today. I didn’t care for it all that much. Its star’s biceps is another story.

Set in the legendary lands of Persia, this adaptation of a videogame strives for Pirates of the Caribbean-like fun, but comes up short. Like Johnny Depp’s franchise, this one, too, is a Jerry Bruckheimer joint, so it’s plenty action-packed and effects-driven, but there’s only so much you can do in the desert, y’ know.

So the focus has to be on the story, which is not all that rich.

Gyllenhaal plays the free-spirited, non-noble-blooded Prince Dastan, a buff and tan hunk with long hair. He was spotted at a market as a child by the king, who adopted him because of his extraordinary exhibit of bravery and generosity – and knack for Parkour – saving a fellow street rat.

All grown up (I’ll say), Dastan and his older brothers get along famously and do battle together. It is on a journey to overtake the holy city of Alamut that his final destiny begins to manifest itself. The princes attack the city, on the recommendation of the king’s brother Nazim (Ben Kingsley), and take it, alright, but not without there being fateful consequences. Worse, they don’t know they’re doing their uncle’s evil bidding.

Oooh.

Dastan, being the adopted son, is scapegoated when the king is murdered, so he partners with the Alamutian princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton, in a role that, if you close your eyes for a second, sounds exactly like the one she played in Clash of the Titans) and escapes prosecution and certain death.

Together, they race against dark forces to clear Dastan’s name, prevent Nazim’s power grab, and safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the fabled Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.

It all sounds so much more exciting than it is, though.

Honestly, the only thing that kept my attention was Gyllenhaals’ physique, not only because it’s ridikolously aspirational but because it entertained. They guy’s leaping from roof to roof, doing battle with swords, riding horses – the heroic works. Except for choice bon mots here or there, all of which were featured in the movie’s trailer, it is up to Jakey’s broad, defined shoulders to bare the weight of a big blockbuster built...on sand.

My Rating **

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures.

The New Deal

Once upon a time, the episode of HBO’s Sex and the City titled “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little” aired, and inspired the revolutionary self-help best-seller known as He’s Just Not That Into You.

Written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo, a former executive story editor and writer on the show, the tome shone a light on the awful truths of dating, like if he’s not calling you…or marrying you…or sleeping with you, then – all together – he (or she) must not be that into you.

The movie by the same title is out today, and it’s a must-watch for two reasons.

First, the cast: When else are you going to watch such a good-looking ensemble, including Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore (an executive producer on it), Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly (HBO’s Entourage), Bradley Cooper (TV’s Alias), Ginnifer Goodwin (HBO’s Big Love), Scarlett Johansson, and Barrymore’s ex, Justin Long, in one movie?

Not soon enough.

And second, it’s given Saturday Night Live a reason to tap Cooper to host tomorrow night. Now, that little added extra is worth the price of the ticket.

But I know. I digress.

He’s Just Not That Into You tells the Baltimore-set interconnected stories of a group of people facing the challenges of reading or misreading human behavior.

For instance, there’s Gigi (a radiant Goodwin), a wallflower-type who puts herself out there, but still can’t find a man to call her back. Is she trying too hard, or is she just plain ol’ unlucky in love?

Then there’s Beth (Aniston), a woman who has been in a relationship with Neil (Affleck) for seven years, but he’s still not proposing. Is he stalling, or is it never going to happen?

And there’s also Anna (Johansson), a femme fatale-type who’s stringing along Conor (Connolly), a good-boy realtor, and flirting with Ben (Cooper), an exec married to Janine (Connelly), a tightly wound co-worker of Gigi and Beth’s.

Look, He’s Just Not That Into You is a rom-com, and unfortunately, it’s a phenomenal one because the rom in it is so…calibrated, so…clean, so…precise, that it just falls short of something we can actually relate to. And the com in it, while insightful, is not ha ha! enough.

I still liked it, though.

But in a post-Rules, post-Sex and the City world, in which we (women and men) are supposed to be able to talk about feelings, I just did not think it really brought anything new to the table. Still, some of us need to watch this movie. Perhaps it can point us in the right direction, or perhaps it will make us smile. Often, that’s all you need.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.

A Vogue Idea

So, yeah – I totally mined the Sex and the City episode guide to come up with a fitting headline for my review of The September Issue, but the truth is that title of a fourth-season SATC episode can best sum up what filmmaker R.J. Cutler had when he thought about making a documentary about the travails of Vogue editrix Anna Wintour.

Cutler, by the way, shot the thing two years ago, so I’m sure you’ll be watching the movie with ever trendy nostalgia-tinged eyes given the current TETs (that’s tough economic times).

Nevertheless, though, spending a remarkably taut and precise 88 minutes lost in Wintour’s realm at Vogue is a treat for nostalgics and cinephiles alike.

The September Issue is a documentary about the single most important figure in the $300 billion global fashion industry – that would be Wintour, natch. It chronicles the year Cutler spent with her and her team as they readied the record-setting September 2007 issue of Vogue, the largest they’ve produced, down to the last brutal nitpick of cover girl Sienna Miller’s neck and teeth.

But the film, which is fascinating and funny and insightful, transcends Wintour. It’s about Vogue, of course, but it’s also about an industry that can make people very nervous (as Wintour puts it), and it’s about what it really takes to assemble an iconic piece of pop and put it out there for all to see and dissect.

That all of this goes back to Wintour is a testament to her significance and power. “Anna’s like…Madonna,” says designer Thakoon. She’s an influence.

We have this image of her, don’t we – we don’t call her an editrix for nothing – and this film debunks it a little bit.

Wintour’s a complicated woman of the world. She’s able and smart and tough, not to mention successful and respected. I could say she’s feared, but I think misunderstood (by some) is more like it.

She’s impervious, indeed, but she’s also quite fair with her colleagues. Just ask Vogue’s longtime creative director Grace Coddington.

She and Wintour have worked together for decades. They understand each other and they respect each other. Coddington probably knows better than anyone what is Wintour’s taste, let alone the pressure she’s under, so when we see in the doc that Wintour has 86d some of the (very expensive) photos Coddington has produced, we get a sense that she’s not making those cuts to be a bitch.

Wintour has been tasked – and proven (she’s the one who thought to put celebrities instead of models on the cover of fashion magazines) – with the task of being a tastemaker. Designers don’t make a move without consulting her.

She knows her s---, and she’s good at it, too. She rules with an iron, if perfectly accessorized fist, and if she were a man no one would ever call her “the devil.”

The September Issue is a breezy watch, and that’s because I don’t think Wintour was too keen on revealing too much about herself. But when she did, like when she said her family’s “amused” by what she does, it reminds us, it shows us that she’s very much human.

Her mystique and allure remains well-preserved, though. We’ve learned just enough not to vilify her so much.

I really enjoyed this doc because of the people in it – you really haven’t lived until you see André Leon Talley leaving Vera Wang’s high-five hanging – and because I’m in that magazine-production world, although in a considerably much smaller scale.

It captured the essence of the process so well, Cutler should be proud – and nominated.

My Rating ****

Photo: Roadside Attractions.

Sympathy for the Devil and the Word Players

The Devil Wears Prada, an adaptation of the infamous 2004 roman à clef by onetime assistant to Vogue magazine editrix Anna Wintour-turned-chick-lit princess Lauren Weisberger, is set in the stimulating microcosm that is Manhattan, where whom you wear is just as important if not more than whom you know. At least according to this movie.

It follows the travails of recent college graduate Andrea Sachs, a wide-eyed young journalist who reluctantly takes a position as an assistant at Runway, the Holy Grail of fashion, even though she would much rather be writing serious articles for The New Yorker.

I could write an entire essay on why people really need to start considering that entertainment writing is just as important – and hey, someone’s got to do it! – but I think that if you’re reading this you probably know my take on this matter. All I will say is information, not matter what kind, is important. (In a way, this struggle of Andrea’s was strike 1 for the movie, come to think of it.)

Anyway, I recently heard a snippet of a phone interview between Bravo and Anne Hathaway, who plays Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada. I remember her saying something along the lines of how the movie sort of explores how young people reconcile their idealism with the reality of the world.

In a way, it does just that – albeit in terribly stylish fashion (thanks to costume designer Patricia Field, whose fashion-forward credits include HBO’s Sex and the City). But this breakthrough is by no means inventive; The Devil Wears Prada was a clever title for a generic book and now a clever title for a derivative movie, and not even Chanel, Jimmy Choo, or Prada can help that.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is rather enjoyable, particularly because of Meryl Streep’s devilish turn as Runway’s editrix Miranda Priestly, a woman so fiercely chic and driven she epitomizes post-modern career womanhood. But it has a bit of a hard time maneuvering its way out of the many shtick-y corners it pits itself into in its very high Manolos. (Streep, by the way, can also be seen in the enjoyable ensemble A Prairie Home Companion.)

For one, The Devil Wears Prada features an almost obligatory makeover: Andrea goes from drab to fab almost as quickly as she not only compromises her idealism but also her values (only to eventually find herself once again, naturally). How passé!

And Miranda’s viciousness proves to be a statement of sorts, of course, but as we’re shown a side of hers she doesn’t allow anyone or even herself to know about, the movie asks that we forgive her a little, and we shouldn’t have to.

We should, however, want to be smarter. Or at least I did after journeying into the world of Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor at The New York Times. Known to millions as NPR's "Puzzle Master," Shortz (pictured, at left) has spent his entire lifetime studying, creating, and editing puzzles, and has built a huge following along the way.

Wordplay introduces us to Shortz's diehard fans – which include President Bill Clinton, Sen. Bob Dole, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, the Indigo Girls, and New York Yankee Mike Mussina – and lets us in on why more than 50 million Americans do crossword puzzles every week.

It also takes us to Stamford, CT, where the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament has been held for almost 30 years. Hosted and directed by Shortz, the tournament is the nation's oldest and largest crossword competition – and a true battle for almost 500 competitors.

I remember solving crossword puzzles with my dad once upon a time, so Wordplay proved most enjoyable. It also proved to be an eye-opener: I’m not very smart…at least crossword puzzle-smart. But if this documentary had been a high-stakes pop culture quiz, then perhaps I would’ve had a shot at figuring out some of the clues with the people on screen.

Either way, Wordplay is a three-letter word for a good time. So is The Devil Wears Prada (seriously… it may be a little too I've-seen-it-done-before-yet but it is effective, and any movie that features two Madonna songs, "Jump" and "Vogue," is fine by me).

My Rating *** (for both)

Photos: 20th Century Fox (The Devil Wears Prada); IFC Films (Wordplay).

Waking Up in Bangkok

The Wolfpack is back, and just like last time, the boys can’t remember a thing about last night.

Yep, the guys from the Golden Globe-winning The Hangover are giving it another go – all the main players, including director Todd Phillips, and stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and the original’s comedic breakout, Zach Galifianakis, have reunited for our Memorial Day enjoyment to bring us the promises-to-be-epic Hangover Part II, which is a completely fun but also totally by-the-numbers sequel.

Seriously, if I hadn’t been so in the mood for a laugh I would have found this part deux to be quite lazy. Which – Hindsight Alert! – it kinda is.

I mean, the basic structure and all the basic flagpoles that made the first one so original and successful are there, disguised to accommodate the (lack of new) plot and the new setting, but, y’ know, there.

Obviously, we have to have Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms), and Alan (Galifianakis, looking at times a little annoyed about the business of doing the sequel, which he sounded in an interview I read), but that’s not where the similarities end.

There’s a wedding (this time it’s Stu who’s walking down the aisle, having divorced Heather Graham’s Vegas pole worker, to marry a new character, a sweetheart girl named Lauren played by Jamie Chung), and it’s a destination wedding at a luxe resort in Thailand (that’s where the bride’s conveniently from), so, there’s gotta be a bachelor party, right?

Not if Stu has anything to say about it (he kinda doesn’t want to get roofied again, which is understandable), but, really, c’mon, his pals say, that is some bulls--- – I’m paraphrasing here – especially since they have to make it all the way out to Asia.

In any case, the group agrees to take it easy, and to take Alan with them, which is not something Stu wants to do, but it means so much to the schlub he eventually says it’s alright.

As it would happen, one tame thing leads to another wilder thing, and pretty soon they’re all having a ginormous WTF Moment all over again.

They wake up in a seedy, roach-infested Bangkok hotel.

They’re all worse for the wear. One of them now has a shaved head, another a Tyson-esque face tat. Oh, and there’s a drug-dealing, cigarette-smoking monkey bouncing around. Someone’s lost a finger. And, just for extra credit, Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong, from TV’s Community), the Chinese mobster from the first movie, is there with his big bag of BS (and blow).

And, oh yeah, Teddy (Mason Lee), Stu’s prodigy, 16-year-old future brother-in-law (and his future, and disapproving, father-in-law’s pride and joy), is nowhere to be found.

Just like before, the clueless Wolfpack has to figure what, indeed happened to them the night before. Hilarity and all kinds of raunchiness ensue...but not a heckuva lot of originality, unfortch.

For that I will point you in the direction of Bridesmaids.

Sorry, Wolfpack. You’ll do well, I’m sure. You’ve not delivered a Sex and the City 2-type turkey, but you haven’t outdone yourself – you’ve only imitated yourself well enough to get away with it.

My Rating ***

Photo: Warner Bros.